PSYCHO (1998)

On left is Anthony Perkins as the original ‘Norman Bates’ in Alfred Hitchcock’s, ‘Psycho’ (1960), on right, ‘Vince Vaughn’ taking over the role as, ‘Norman Bates’ in Director Gus Van Sant’s remake of Hitchcock’s classic.

Gus Van Sant’s movie Psycho (1998) is a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Psycho (1960). Both are based on Bloch’s novel about a true story of a serial killer. The plot revolves around Norman Bates’s life who was abused by her mother as a child. He had become really perturbed after his father left them when he was only five years old. He murdered her mother and her lover 10 years ago due to his mother’s lack of attention on him. He had become insecure as she was his “only world.” As an adult he now suffers from dissociative personality disorder which means that there are two voices in one head that interchange roles according to the circumstances. The second voice is of his deceased mother who has been buried in Green Lawn Cemetery and the first is of Norman himself. The movie begins with Marion Crane’s boss handing over $40,000 to her, and asking her to keep it in the safe. Marion changes her mind about the money. She decides to keep her boss’s money and drives away. She changes her car with another in order to save herself from the police officer’s prying eyes. While driving in the dark thunderous night, Marion comes across a motel—Bates—to stay for the night. However, she is not aware of Norman’s mental illness. When Norman sees her undress through a hole in the wall, he starts having an orgasm. He later comes into the scene as the mother, dressed in a white gown and white hair. He does what his mother would have done to take revenge from Marion as he got attracted to her. He murders her and then comes back as the “responsible” son who would leave no evidence behind to protect her mother from being caught. The story then revolves around Sam Loomis (Marion’s boyfriend) and Lila Crane’s (Marion’s sister) quest to find Marion along with detective Arbogast who is eventually killed by Norman when he tries to look for Mrs. Bates, Norman’s mother (who is dead).

Sam and Lila then take upon themselves to reveal the mystery behind Norman’s mother and to find Marion who has been missing. They visit the Bates’s motel and checks in as a couple. Sam engages Norman in conversation when Lila goes inside Norman’s house to meet his mother. She is shocked to find her mother’s corpse that is sitting in a chair. Norman runs toward his house to make sure that no one is inside. He disguises himself as his old mother and runs towards Lila to kill her with the same knife that he used to kill others. Then Sam enters just in time to protect her from the “psycho” Norman. In the next scene we see him confined in a room of the courthouse where he is cross-questioned by the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist reveals the factors that led to his present condition and how his mind is completely taken over by his mother’s thoughts. Towards the end, Norman is seen talking in his mind in the voice of the mother. He believes (the mother) that the officials would be watching her and she should not kill the fly on her hand in order to prove her innocence.

 

References

Erb, C, (2006). “”Have You Ever Seen the Inside of One of Those Places?”: Psycho, Foucault,         and the Postwar Context of Madness. Cinema Journal, 45(4), 45-63.

Genter, R. (2010). “We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes”: Alfred Hitchcock, American             Psychoanalysis, and the Construction of the Cold War Psychopath. Canadian Review of        American Studies 40(2), 133-162. University of Toronto Press. Retrieved April 18, 2013,           from Project MUSE database.